A Heart Divided (14 page)

My sister kept checking her reflection in the hallway
mirror. She was wearing a dainty pink sweater set that she said was similar to one owned by Madison Honeywell, fashion arbiter of Redford East Middle School—and a touch of pink lip gloss. “But this ponytail makes my face look fat,” she declared.

“No, it doesn’t.” I didn’t look up from the pages I was reading—my transcript of Ron Bingham’s interview. It was like a terrible car accident. One part of you wants to look away and not see something so horrible, but another part of you is fascinated.

“Kate, should I cut my hair?” Portia asked.

“Hey, I love your hair, sugarplum,” my father drawled from his beloved Barcalounger. On his lap was the Styrofoam container of deep-fried catfish takeout that my mother had forbidden in a preemptive strike against high cholesterol.

Portia looked aghast. “Daddy, you had a Southern accent just now.”

“Danged if I didn’t.” My father grinned wildly.

She looked even more horrified. “Okay, no offense, Daddy, but you sound retarded. If Cassidy comes in, please don’t say anything dumb.”

He wiped tartar sauce from his chin. “Well, hush my mouth.”

“Kate, make him stop.”

Before I could respond, there was a loud honk. Portia peeked out from the living room curtains and gasped. “Kate. Look!”

I got up to look outside. There was a blue Lexus in our driveway. Cassidy sat in front, next to her mother. Two boys were in the back.

“So?”

“That’s Barney, the boy I told you about,” she hissed. “And his friend Alan. I didn’t know they were riding with us. What should I do?”

“Get your purse. Go outside. Get in the car.”

“Squished in the backseat with
two boys?”

“What two boys?” my father called.

Portia’s eyes pleaded with me for rescue.

“Just some boys in her class,” I said.

Dad frowned as Cassidy’s mom honked again. “You’re much too young to date, Porsche.”

“It’s not a date,” I assured my father.

Portia mouthed “Thank you” and reached for her purse. I told her she looked great and gave her a quick hug.

“Hold on, Porsche.” My father stopped his movie. “I want to meet these people.”

“Daddy, no. You can’t! Daddy—”

Too late. A moment later, he was out the front door, red-faced Portia trailing behind him. They nearly collided with Jack, who sidestepped them on his way up the walk. He came through the screen door and gave me a hug. “Your sister looks as if she’s about to face a firing squad,” he joked.

“First kinda-sorta date,” I explained.

“You remember yours?”

“Sure. When I was six, we took a school trip to the Bronx Zoo. I told David Levine that if he didn’t hold my hand, I’d beat him up. Does that count?”

“Absolutely.” Jack saw the transcript pages strewn across the coffee table. “So, how’s the writing going?”

Dangerous question. If anything should have been the catalyst for me to write a decent play, it was my interviews with Ron Bingham and Malik El Baz. I was certainly following Marcus’s decree that you can’t write what you don’t know. Well, now I knew a lot. That very morning, I’d tried again. Nothing. Portia could have written a better play. I didn’t know why I was stuck. And I didn’t want to admit it, not even to Jack.

“Slow,” I said evasively.

“When can I read it?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Well, when you’re ready, Miss Bright is ready,” Jack reminded me.

Maybe it was because the school was buzzing about the upcoming vote that Nikki had casually mentioned in drama class that I was working on a play about the flag furor. I’d expected Miss Bright to react badly. Instead, she’d asked me its title. When I said
Black and White and Redford All Over
, there were appreciative murmurs. It must have impressed Miss Bright, too, because she said she thought it was wonderful that both of our plays were “timely and relevant.” Then Savy Leeman suggested that when I had a draft done, the class should do a reading. Miss Bright
agreed. I’d feigned great enthusiasm while knowing that at the rate I was going, I’d be ready for that reading sometime in the next millennium.

Jack thumbed through my transcript of Bingham’s interview. “This guy is a piece of work.”

“No kidding. Scary that he thinks, deep down, you’re one of his boys.”

“I know.”

I fiddled with the back on an earring. “Jack, no one in your family was ever … ?”

“In the Klan?” He looked up, and I nodded. “My father wasn’t. My grandfather wasn’t. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

How could he say that so casually? Redford ancestors could have been running around in white sheets; Jack didn’t know. Worse, he didn’t seem to care.

“Don’t you think—” I began.

“What I
think
is that both of us think too much.” He put the transcript back on the table and playfully pulled me to my feet. “Come on. You are about to be initiated into a top-secret, Redford tradition known only to the few, the proud, and the desperate to win the Franklin West game.”

He looked so cute. And he was right; I needed a break. “Okay. You talked me into it. I am in your hands.”

“Really? Well, that could make life very interesting.”

His lips were inches from mine when my father came inside, his shoulders drooping. “It’s official. I’ve lost my youngest daughter to preteendom.” He trudged back to the Barca and sank into the Naugahyde. “It’s all downhill from
here. Don’t mind me. I’ll just watch my movie and dream of being Mel Gibson while my arteries harden. Have fun at the game.”

A half hour later, the high beams of Jack’s Jeep cut the darkness like twin light swords as we bumped along a gravel path. From my house, he’d driven back toward Red-ford House. Then, instead of taking the private drive to the front gate, he’d turned onto this country lane.

“So where does this top-secret thing take place?” I asked Jack after a nasty jolt pitched me against him.

“You’ll see.”

“Is all this your property?”

“For better or worse, in the family since 1852.” He gripped the vibrating steering wheel as the lane wound to the right. High corn on both sides of us gave way to woods. Finally, we came to a small clearing. Jack pulled alongside a parked Volvo and turned off the engine.

“This is it,” he announced as the gloom of night swallowed us. He reached into the back, found two flashlights, and handed one to me.

I flicked it on and aimed the light upward from my chin. “No one returns from the Cult of the Sacrificial Volvo,” I intoned, adding my best “Mwa-ah-ah!” vampire laugh.

He winced. “You’re right. You really can’t act.”

“Thanks!” I swatted his butt as we got out of the car. But no amount of prodding on my part would get him to explain where we were or what we were doing. He aimed his flashlight and led the way along a narrow path through the woods. Finally, we emerged in another clearing, smaller than the first one. I swung my flashlight around to find that we were standing on neatly trimmed grass edged by tall rhododendrons. In a corner of the clearing, I saw a square granite building. We trained our lights on its solid brass door.

“What is it?” I asked as we got close.

Suddenly there was a terrible wail from inside whatever the building was, and two spectral zombies leaped out at us, arms flailing. I screamed, jumped backward, and fell on my ass.

That’s when I heard a girl’s gleeful voice. “Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!”

I propped myself up on my elbows, pretty sure I recognized it. “Tisha?”

“Welcome to the crypt of the living dead!” she hooted. She, Terry, and my boyfriend all stood over me, laughing.

“You scared the crap out of me!”

“Tell you what, I’d pay to see that again on videotape,” Jack said, extending a hand to hoist me up while Terry retrieved my flashlight for me.

“Very funny.” I brushed myself off and shined my beam again at the stone building. “Is that thing really a crypt?”

Jack put his hand solemnly on his heart. “Final resting place for generation upon generation of the Redford dearly departed.”

A chill chased up my spine. “You mean this is your family’s mausoleum?”

Tisha linked arms with him playfully. “Also the official site of The Ritual, wherein we invoke the spirits of rebels past to bring good fortune to Rebels present.”

Jack gestured toward the open door and looked at me. “Madam?”

I held back, my voice low. “Your
dad
is buried here.”

“My dad was Redford High’s starting quarterback,” Jack said, smiling. “Believe me, he’s into it.”

A Coleman lantern illuminated a blanket and picnic basket on a bare marble floor. Everyone plopped down on the blanket, so I did, too. Terry took foil-wrapped paper plates from the picnic basket and handed them around. I peeked under the foil. There was a big pinkish thing, little fried-looking things and a pile of light brown curly things. Ick. “I don’t think this restaurant is in the Michelin guide,” I said.

“No dissing the cuisine, Jersey,” Terry warned. “Now, listen up.” He pointed to items on the plate. “You got your salt-cured country ham, your pork rinds, and your week-old hush puppies—fried corn bread they throw to the hounds to shut ′em up.”

“Maybe we could just summon some hungry dogs,” I suggested hopefully.

“No way,” Tisha said. “We’ve eaten this same noxious pregame meal before the Franklin home game for the last three years. And we won ′em all.”

“Coincidence?” Jack asked, wriggling his eyebrows. “I think not.”

“You don’t mess with tradition,” Terry declared, crunching into a pork rind.

“Eat up,” Jack told me cheerfully, popping a piece of country ham into my mouth. It tasted like a salt lick. “The football gods don’t like leftovers.”

They insisted that I eat everything on my plate. Somehow, I did, which earned me a round of applause. We were joking and laughing, and I realized that for the first time, I was actually having fun with Jack’s friends.

Tisha took a small flask from her pocket. “And now, the official Tennessee moonshine invocation.” She swigged and passed the flask to Terry, who did the same and gave it to me. I took a sip—and choked, much to their amusement, but that stuff is strong—then handed it to Jack, who rose, flask in hand.

“Dear Lord,” he began. “We four unworthy sinners humbly invoke the spirit of Rebels past. We ask that You guide many touchdown passes into the arms of our brother Chaz and light the way for the Redford Rebels to victory against the godless Franklin West Warriors. Can I get an amen?”

“Amen!” we chorused.

Jack emptied the flask onto the floor. “The ghosts are now officially sated,” he declared.

“Good,” Tisha said. “Because the stone under here is so cold that my ass is numb. You wanna come warm it up, big guy?”

Terry was more than willing. “We’ll catch up with y’all
at the game. Go Rebels!” With a rousing Rebel yell, they ran out the door.

I leaned my head on Jack’s lap. “I’m having fun. In a sick kind of way. Why aren’t your other friends here?”

“We used to have a few more people. But now Chaz is a starter on the team, so he can’t be here—”

“And Sara’s probably been a cheerleader since she could swing a pom-pom,” I guessed, then looked around. “This place really doesn’t creep you out?”

He stroked my hair. “Used to. Remember I told you about that time Chaz and I ditched school to go fishing?”

“And you had to apologize to, like, everyone in town?”

“Right,” he laughed. “My mother said I’d ‘besmirched the family name.’ She also made me come out here and clear brush for the entire weekend. Then I had to copy the name and date of every set of bones in this crypt onto a family tree. She checked it for accuracy, too.”

“She couldn’t just ground you?”

He chuckled. “Not Sally Redford’s style. At first I was sure some ghoul would rise up and smite me for my wicked ways. When that didn’t happen, I started to like being out here. After that, I came on my own every now and then.”

“Why?”

“To daydream. I spent one entire year imagining I was Superman. Then I changed to Spider-Man.”

“Cooler outfit.” I sat up and looked around. The walls were lined with coffins slid into granite slots, one atop
another, like some kind of macabre filing system. A brass plate on the end sticking out gave names, dates, and epitaphs.

“Where’s your dad buried?” I asked him.

He cocked his head toward the vault closest to the door.

“Every male descendant of Eustis Redford rests here.”

That’s when I noticed the empty slot above his father. For him.

I tried to keep my tone light. “You will spend nine or ten decades as America’s finest actor and die in your sleep at the age of one hundred and ten.”

“What if that’s not the right thing, Kate?” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “All of them, every single one, served. You think they’d tell me, ‘You want to be an actor? Go on then, son. Be whoever you want to be.’”